THE  RURAL  NEW-YORKER, 
Nov.  12 
744 
THE 
Rural  New-Yorker 
TIMES  BUILDING,  NEW  YOliK. 
A  national  Weekly  Journal  for  Country  and  Suburban  Homes. 
ELBERT  8.  CARMAN.  Editor-in-Chief. 
HERBERT  W.  COLLINGWOOD,  Managing  Editor 
ERWIN  G.  FOWLER,  Associate  Editor. 
Copyrighted  1892. 
SATURDAY ,  NOVEMBER  12,  1892. 
Use  sulphate  of  potash  rather  than  muriate,  if  you 
would  increase  the  nutty  flavor  of  potatoes.  Has  this 
been  fairly  tried  outside  of  the  New  Jersey  Station  ? 
*  • 
There  are  lots  of  interesting  points  in  that  descrip¬ 
tion  of  “  The  Old  Brick”  farm.  In  order  to  advertise 
that  stallion  and  show  what  he  could  do  to  the  best 
possible  advantage,  brood  mares  were  secured.  There 
is  a  hint  for  horsemen  who  think  because  they  have  a 
good  stallion  they  have  all  that  is  needed.  The  mother 
is  always  half  the  horse  and  a  mighty  important  half 
too.  Don’t  let  the  quality  of  that  half  shrink  to  a 
third  by  using  a  scrub  mare.  Another  point  is  the 
feeding  of  barley  mush  to  calves.  Try  that  and  you 
will  learn  what  you  have  often  been  told,  that  barley 
is  one  of  the  best  possible  grains  for  young  stock. 
#  * 
The  Sussex  County  (N.  J.)  Agricultural  Society, 
after  a  somewhat  checkered  career  of  12  years,  has 
given  up  the  ghost.  It  has  been  a  conspicuous  example 
of  how  fairs  should  not  be  managed.  The  race  was 
the  most  conspicuous  feature  and  the  swarm  of  fakirs 
and  skin  gamblers  was  the  next  most  prominent.  It 
never  had  the  confidence  of  the  farmers — such  fairs 
never  do — and  hence  it  has  died  the  death  of  such  ill- 
advised  concerns.  There  is  no  good  reason  why  a  new 
organization  should  not  take  its  place,  and,  profiting 
by  the  faults  of  its  predecessor,  be  a  shining  success. 
Sussex  County  has  the  raw  material  for  such  an 
organization.  #  * 
Three  years  ago  The  It.  N.-Y.  described  a  visit  to 
the  fertilizer  farms  in  New  Jersey  where  farmers  keep 
no  stock  beyond  work  teams  and  a  milch  cow  and  sell 
at  a  profit  grass,  grain  and  potatoes.  This  descrip¬ 
tion  grew  into  “Chemicals  and  Clover,”  a  pamphlet 
describing  how  chemical  fertilizers  and  grass  sod  are 
made  to  take  the  place  of  stable  manure  in  every  way. 
We  have  now  a  still  more  interesting  sort  of  farming 
to  describe.  We  have  found  a  farmer  on  the  thin,  poor 
“  barrens  ”  of  Long  Island,  farming  with  fertilizers 
successfully  and  improving  the  soil  of  his  farm  with¬ 
out  stable  manure.  An  account  of  this  will,  we  think, 
prove  about  the  most  interesting  side  of  the  Chemicals 
and  Clover  discussion  yet  introduced. 
*  * 
That  desperate  cases  require  desperate  remedies  is 
doubtless  the  chief  cause  of  the  remedy  for  agricul¬ 
tural  distress  in  Great  Britain  just  proposed  by  Henry 
Labouchere,  Editor  of  Truth,  Member  of  Parliament, 
late  nearly  successful  aspirant  for  a  Cabinet  position 
and  leader  of  the  Radicals  in  the  House  of  Commons. 
He  proposes  that  every  parish  should  have  the  right 
to  exappropriate  the  land  of  non-occupying  owners, 
giving  them  a  fair  price  therefor  in  village  bonds,  and 
that  the  land  thus  acquired  should  be  let  to  tenants, 
at  payable  rentals,  by  the  parishes.  This  would  be  a 
long  step  towards  confiscation  of  real  estate,  espec¬ 
ially  of  that  belonging  to  non-residents  or  absentee 
landlords;  but  in  the  United  Kingdom  the  evils  arising 
from  this  abuse  are  great  enough  to  demand  prompt 
and  radical  remedial  legislation. 
•  # 
Once  more  there  is  a  scare  about  contagious  pleuro¬ 
pneumonia  among  cattle  owners  in  Great  Britain,  but 
this  time  it  appears  to  be  rather  unfounded  or  prema¬ 
ture.  It  was  started  about  the  middle  of  October  by 
the  alleged  discovery  of  a  diseased  beast  at  Deptford, 
London,  among  a  shipment  of  cattle  from  this  country. 
Then  came  a  report  of  the  discovery  of  two  cases  among 
the  1,200  animals  imported  at  Aberdeen  by  the  steam¬ 
ers  Hurona  and  Monkseaton  from  Canada,  which  had 
hitherto  been  considered  so  free  from  the  plague  that 
her  cattle  have  all  along  been  admitted  freely  into  all 
parts  of  the  United  Kingdom  while  ours  have  been  em¬ 
bargoed  at  the  ports  of  debarkation.  The  entire  1,200 
were  at  once  slaughtered  as  a  precautionary  measure, 
and  so  were  60  other  beasts  wh'ch  had  come  in  contact 
with  some  of  the  Canadian  cattle  in  Fifeshire.  The 
greatest  pressure  is  now  being  brought  to  bear  on 
the  Board  of  Agriculture  to  secure  the  prohibition  of 
the  free  importation  of  Canadian  cattle,  on  the  ground, 
forsooth,  that  Canada  has  not  taken  due  precautions 
to  shut  out  cattle  from  the  United  States.  Scotch  vet¬ 
erinary  surgeons  declare  that  the  disease  at  Aberdeen 
was  not  contagious  pleuro-pneumonia,  but  a  non-con¬ 
tagious  ailment,  the  symptoms  of  which  have  often 
been  mistaken  for  tho«e  of  the  more  dangerous  disease. 
Scotch  grazers  regard  the  act'on  of  the  government  as 
unfriendly  and  hasly:  English  cattle  owners  insist 
that  the  Administration  must  choose  between  the  in¬ 
terests  of  the  latter  and  the  safety  of  the  whole  British 
herds;  Irish  cattlemen,  who  have  large  supplies,  are 
jubilant  at  the  prospect  of  a  rise  in  prices  on  account 
of  an  embargo  on  Canadian  stock;  Canadian  officials 
are  strenuously  urging  that  the  decision  to  schedule 
their  colony  shall  be  delayed  until  the  result  of  in¬ 
quiries  now  under  way  in  Canada,  shall  be  made 
known,  and  the  United  States  hold  the  position  of  an 
interested  and  watchful  spectator. 
*  * 
Let  no  farmer’s  boy  in  New  York  State  forget  that 
the  short  course  in  agriculture  at  Cornell  will  open 
Janury  3,  1893.  The  R.  N.-Y.  takes  a  personal  interest 
in  this  course.  We  want  to  see  the  agricultural  de¬ 
partment  at  Cornell  filled  to  overflowing  with  bright 
young  farmers.  Nothing  would  do  New  York  State 
farming  so  much  good.  Our  personal  advice  to  farmers’ 
sons  is  to  begin  now  to  plan  for  that  course.  We  trust 
that  father  will  see  the  benefit  of  such  a  schooling  and 
willingly  help  you  ;  if  he  does  not  at  first,  he  can  be 
convinced.  Keep  at  him,  and  don’t  rest  until  the  way 
is  clear.  Prof.  Roberts  writes  that  the  school  is  likely 
to  be  crowded  so  that  applications  should  be  made  at 
an  early  date.  Write  your  application  before  you  go 
to  bed  to-night !  #  * 
The  Milk  Reporter  defends  the  right  of  the  New 
York  Milk  Exchange  to  fix  the  price  of  milk,  ignoring 
altogether  the  rights  of  the  producers.  Its  arguments 
(?)  are  not  particularly  convincing  and  in  other  parts 
of  the  same  issue,  it  rather  upsets  its  own  theory.  It 
publishes  without  comment  the  following  : 
The  New  England  Milk  Producers’  Association  has  fixed  the  price  of 
milk  at  37  cents  per  8}^-quart  can,  etc. 
Elsewhere  in  the  same  issue  it  comments  on  the 
price  of  milk  in  Philadelphia,  which  is  made  by  the 
producers.  Now,  if  the  Reporter  is  right  in  its  ideas 
about  the  situation  in  New  York,  the  producers  who 
supply  Boston  and  Philadelphia  are  presumptuous  and 
wrong,  and  the  Reporter  should  tell  them  so.  The 
producers  who  supply  Chicago  also  need  its  attention, 
for  they  also  fix  the  price  of  their  product.  New  York 
is  in  a  hopeless  minority  and  there  is  only  the  Reporter 
to  defend  it.  *  # 
What  proportion  of  the  farmers  of  this  country  read 
and  study  the  writings  of  such  men  as  T.  B.  Terry  ? 
What  proportion  of  those  who  do  read  such  articles 
really  try  hard  to  duplicate  the  methods  thus  de¬ 
scribed  ?  Answer  these  questions  and  you  will  see 
what  a  dream  Mr.  Dibble  talks'about  in  supposing  that 
in  one  year  the  wheat  and  potato  average  could  be 
doubled.  It  could  be  done,  but  it  won’t  be  until  the 
present  “  human  nature  ”  is  bred  out  of  a  majority  of 
American  farmers.  Mr.  Dibble’s  own  experience  and 
assertions  show  what  can  be  done  to-day  by  a  live 
American  farmer  who  respects  his  calling.  Last  week, 
on  Long  Island,  the  writer  met  dozens  of  young  men 
who  started  as  tenants  or  renters,  and  are  now  owners 
of  good  farms — all  done  by  straight  and  plain  farming 
with  the  prices  and  money  conditions  of  the  present 
day.  Let  us  have  helpful  legislation  by  all  means,  but 
don’t  try  any  expensive  experiments  just  to  see  how 
they  will  work  and  “change  them  if  they  fail.” 
*  * 
Never  has  there  been  such  a  rush  of  wheat  to  mar¬ 
ket  so  early  in  the  season  as  at  present,  and  never 
within  the  memory  of  the  present  generation  have 
prices  been  so  low.  Of  course  one  condition  is,  to  a 
great  extent,  a  consequence  of  the  other.  As  soor  as 
the  crop  was  harvested  it  was,  for  the  most  part, 
thrashed  and  straightway  hurried  to  market,  espec¬ 
ially  in  the  West  and  Northwest.  The  consequence 
has  been  an  unprecedented  blockade  at  all  the  rail¬ 
roads,  elevators  and  warehouses.  Thousands  of  loaded 
ears  are  side-tracked  for  miles  on  the  chief  routes  of 
transportation,  the  elevators  everywhere  are  crammed 
and  other  suitable  storage  places  are  overflowing. 
In  order  to  free  the  loaded  cars  so  as  to  be  able  to  use 
them  again,  the  railroad  companies  are  charging  heavy 
demurrage  for  the  retention  of  this  rolling  stock,  and 
confusion  is  confounded  among  the  grain  shippers  of 
the  West.  Doubtless  much  of  the  trouble  is  due  to  the 
“  Hold  Your  Wheat”  circulars  of  the  Farmers’  Alliance 
a  year  ago,  as  these  induced  thousands  of  farmers  to 
hold  on  to  a  part  or  the  whole  of  their  crop  for  better 
prices.  These  never  came  and  the  surplus  crop  of  last 
year  is  now  rushing  to  market  with  this  year’s  output. 
Moreover,  the  disappointment  of  wheat  growers  at  the 
failure  of  the  Alliance’s  predictions  in  1891,  makes 
them  distrustful  of  all  present  prophecies  regarding 
future  prices,  hence  their  extraordinary  haste  to  mar¬ 
ket  their  crop.  Of  course  prices  are  likely  to  go  up 
later,  but  the  middlemen  and  speculators  will  be 
almost  exclusively  the  gainers. 
A  reader  of  The  Rural  New-YorkeR  who  has  been 
noticing  the  awards  made  at  fruit  exhibitions,  notes 
that  some  fruit  growers  have  received  premiums  for 
collections  of  apples  and  pears,  embracing  50,  75  and 
even  a  .greater  number  of  varieties,  and  asks  if  it  is 
profitable  for  an  orchardist  to  grow  such  a  great 
variety.  The  Rural  answers  decidedly,  no;  if  by  grow¬ 
ing  them  he  means  to  have  one  or  more  trees  of  all 
these  sorts.  A  practical  orchardist  will  generally  con¬ 
fine  his  list  of  varieties  to  a  very  much  smaller  number. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  intelligent  horticulturist 
feels  that  he  must  keep  abreast  of  the  times  and  know 
something  of  the  new  fruits  that  are  constantly  being 
evolved.  By  grafting,  he  may  make  one  or  two  trees 
answer  for  testing  any  number  of  new  sorts  and  he  is 
thus  enabled  to  exhibit  them,  often  showing  a  dozen 
or  'more  varieties  from  a  single  tree.  The  late  E.  H. 
Clark,  of  Newburg,  N.  Y.,  an  amateur  fruit  grower 
and  friend  of  the  lamented  Downing,  had  on  his  city 
lot  a  pear  tree  on  which  he  grew  nearly  100  varieties 
of  pears.  Instead  of  setting  out  trees  of  untested 
sorts,  get  scions  and  you  can  get  fruit  the  second  year, 
instead  of  waiting  five,  six  or  seven  years  for  young- 
trees  to  come  into  bearing. 
*  * 
BREVITIES. 
Oh.  Kelffer,  with  the  bumble  quince 
That  makes  the  finest  of  preserves, 
Rest  thou  !  You  never  can  convince 
That  for  the  Bartlett  you  can  serve. 
Your  handsome  cheek  but  hides  a  lie: 
The  mouth  grows  moist  at  sight  of  you. 
And  yet  you  are  not  fit  for  pie. 
Man  learns  It  when  he  bites  Into 
Your  rosy  cheek— and  then  he  swears, 
In  words  that  all  can  understand. 
One  of  the  many  wretched  Dears 
Not  made  to  eat  from  hand  1 
Good  Nature  wasted  time  on  you. 
She  knew  not  what  she  was  about. 
She  gave  you  beauty  It  Is  true. 
But,  oh  !  she  left  the  sugar  out  1 
Organize  a  hen  dairy. 
It  takes  4G5  average  sized  leaves  to  make  a  pound. 
A  Frenchman’s  happiness  will  freeze  unless  he  ends  his  meal  with 
cheese. 
Moral:  Don’t  buy  a  cheap  Incubator.  It  Is  made  to  sell  rather 
than  to  hatch. 
Have  you  been  wasting  good  nitrogenous  food  by  feeding  it  to 
young  roosters  ? 
The  Leghorn  pullet’s  comb  begins  to  lop,  and  now  her  days  of 
maidenhood  must  stop. 
When  a  waiter  In  a  Bowery  saloon  orders  ham  and  eggs,  he  says, 
“one  chuck  and  a  grunt  1  ” 
A  trace  of  Holstein  blood  underneath  a  Jersey’s  skin  will  make  a 
bigger  eater  and  the  milk  will  not  be  thin. 
The  French  are  using  cheap  molasses  In  the  Bordeaux  mixture. 
It  sticks  to  leaves  and  makes  It  more  of  a  fixture. 
As  Prof.  Roberts  asks,  why  not  use  the  surplus  straw  as  a  mulch  for 
pastures  ?  The  pasture  crop  Is  too  often  neglected. 
Timothy  doesn’t  need  rubber  boots  on  Its  feet— clover  does.  Mr. 
Jamison  tells  us  how  tiling  changed  his  soil  from  Timothy  to  clover. 
OUR  fertilizer  farmer  friends,  to  carry  their  theory,  that  live  stock 
are  not  necessary  to  successful  farming,  should  keep  goats  to  provide 
milk  and  butter. 
Did  our  friend  who  talks  about  bran  on  another  page  really  give  It  a 
fair  test  ?  If  bran  Is  the  humbug  some  farmers  claim  It  is,  the  sooner 
we  prove  it  the  better. 
The  R.  N.-Y.  has  secured  the  services  of  a  poultry  expert,  and  will 
make  descriptions  of  some  of  the  best  poultry  farms  In  the  country  a 
specialty  of  comiug  issues. 
It  speaks  volumes  for  the  dairy  school  at  the  Vermont  Experiment 
Station  that  It  has  now,  as  a  student,  the  butter  maker  who  took  a 
prize  at  the  great  Food  Show  1 
Parties  now  and  then  ask  where  they  can  buy  good  hay  directly 
from  farmers— not  through  middlemen.  Why  not  try  The  R.  N.-Y.  as 
a  middleman— that  is,  advertise  your  hay  and  potatoes  ? 
The  Utah  Experiment  Station  tried  oak  leaves  as  a  mulch  for  straw¬ 
berries.  They  are  not  satisfactory— compacting  and  packing  down  so 
as  to  Injure  the  plants.  Scraping  up  leaves  Is  a  slow  way  to  wealth. 
Chicago  has  adopted  terra  cotta  and  white  as  her  municipal  colors. 
Let  her  now  adopt  a  high  standard  for  the  milk  to  be  consumed  within 
her  gates  next  year,  lest  terra  cotta  and  white  blend  with  terror 
cholera  and  black. 
Here  Is  a  description  of  a  neighborly  courtesy  from  Massachusetts: 
"  My  Imperial  Gage  trees  are  ruined  by  old,  warty  trees  notwoitha 
cent  apiece,  belonging  to  a  man  who  Is  too  shiftless  and  mean  to  boot 
to  cut  them  down.” 
The  old  Idea  that  dairymen  should  buy  grain  in  order  to  make  richer 
manure  in  order  to  grow  larger  crops,  Is  sound.  In  many  cases  it  would 
be  cheaper  for  them  to  buy  fertilizers  Instead  of  grain  and  grow 
bigger  crops  of  corn  for  the  silo.  A  dairyman  should  buy  as  little  fat 
as  possible. 
The  Expositor,  of  Fresno,  Cal.,  speaks  of  a  yield  of  Sultana  (Seed¬ 
less)  grapes  of  100  tons  from  acres.  The  Rural  rises  to  remark 
that,  if  this  Is  what  the  Expositor  Intended  to  say,  and  it  Is  not  a 
typographical  error,  the  author  of  the  statement  could  give  Annanlas 
and  Sapphira  40  points  and  then  be  an  easy  winner. 
A  steamer  load  of  oranges  is  now  being  made  up  In  Florida  for 
shipment  to  England.  A  number  of  growers  will  make  up  the  cargo 
and  take  the  risk  of  selling  at  a  profitable  rate.  The  scheme  Is  to  try 
the  English  market  and  see  If  a  demand  can  be  created  for  the  Florida 
fruit.  We  hope  the  plan  will  succeed  and  that  our  Florida  growers 
can  find  an  outlet  for  their  surplus. 
The  testing  of  the  milk  of  cows  for  butter  fat  is  proving  a  revelation 
to  the  owners  of  dairy  herds,  resulting  In  the  weeding  out  of  scrubs  and 
the  disposal  of  all  unprofitable  animals.  A  test  of  the  milk  of  human 
kindness  for  moral  fat,  applied  to  the  keepers  of  some  herds,  would 
prove  equally  profitable.  The  scrub  must  go,  and  certainly  there  Is 
need  of  considerable  weeding  on  both  sides  of  the  barnyard  fence. 
The  Illinois  State  Board  of  Agriculture  has  abandoned  the  Idea  of 
holding  an  American  Horse  Show  as  well  as  a  Cattle  Show  at  Chicago 
this  year;  but  the  managers  of  the  Chicago  National  Horse  Show  offer 
liberal  premiums  for  all  breeds  of  draft,  coach  and  light-harness 
horses.  They  propose  to  hold  a  show  from  November  28  to  December 
3,  inclusive.  Premium  lists  can  be  obtained  of  Col.  R.  E.  Edmonson, 
44  Portland  Block,  Chicago.  Good  for  private  enterprise! 
